Central Asia news

President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai will visit Turkmenistan

President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai will visit Turkmenistan later this week. Karzai and his host, President Gurbankuly Berdymuhammedov, will discuss the trans-Afghan gas pipeline project.

The gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan will bring gas from Dovletabad (experts believe this gas field to contain 1,756.6 billion cubic meters of gas) to Pakistan and India. Annual running capacity of the gas pipeline is estimated at 30 billion cubic meters, its length at nearly 1,500 kilometers (including 170 kilometers across Turkmenistan, 830 across Afghanistan, and 400 across Pakistan). The cost of the project is expected to amount to $2-2.5 billion. India too may join the project. According to some estimates, over 12,000 jobs will become available to the Afghanis in the first phases of pipeline construction. Once the gas pipeline is built, Afghanistan will be able to count on $300 million worth of transit tariffs every year.